While doing research for the dance-theater piece “XXYY,” the choreographer Richard Move encountered a little-known book published in 1918. “Autobiography of an Androgyne,” by Ralph Werther, also known as Jennie June, chronicles a transsexual woman’s life in New York City at the turn of the 20th century, a life plagued by violence and discrimination. Move, who has spent decades investigating gender and performance, was both enthralled and distraught.

“The book is so graphic, so heartbreaking, that I devoured it in one sitting,” Move — who prefers the gender-neutral pronoun “they” over “he” or “she” — said recently at home in Hell’s Kitchen. “Reading it was ultimately so disturbing that I threw it out. I didn’t even want it in this home.”

Move has since reacquired and delved into the memoir, a chief inspiration for “XXYY,” which opens at New York Live Arts on Wednesday as part of the cross-disciplinary Live Ideas festival. Exploring the theme of a world without binaries — in realms of gender, race, religion, art — this year’s festival is organized by the transgender performer Justin Vivian Bond, who uses the gender-neutral honorific Mx., hence the festival’s title, Mx’d Messages.

Image

Ms. Clemente, left, and Move at a costume fititng in Ms. Clemente’s New York home.CreditChad Batka for The New York Times

“I’m interested in things that span and expand boxes and binaries and boundaries,” Mx. Bond said in a phone interview. “Richard Move is one of those people who floats between worlds and between genders and is very difficult to pin down into one type of artist or one genre.”

In addition to text from “Autobiography of an Androgyne,” “XXYY” features the music of Alessandro Moreschi, the Vatican’s last castrato singer, and costumes by the Italian designer Alba Clemente. It shares a program with a 20th-anniversary edition of “Martha@,” Move’s popular series invoking the life and work of the modern dance pioneer Martha Graham. Joining Move in both pieces are the former Graham dancers Katherine Crockett and Catherine Cabeen.

Move spoke about the process of creating “XXYY” and interpreting — not impersonating — Graham. Here are edited excerpts from that conversation.

Image

Richard Move.CreditChad Batka for The New York Times

What is ‘XXYY’?

“XXYY” is a ritual, a conjuring. It’s séancelike. I’d always wanted to choreograph to Alessandro Moreschi, the only castrato to make solo recordings. Listening to them is a haunting, ethereal, mystical, spiritual experience. It’s been written that they sang with a tear in each note. I say “they,” because what gender is a eunuch singing somewhere between the alto and soprano range? What is that pronoun?

The androgyne — Ralph Werther, a.k.a. Jennie June — is living at the same time, different continent. So we’re looking at these gender outlaws of over a century ago.

You’ve also described the androgyne as a contemporary figure.

These heroic, she-roic figures, their stories are more resonant today than ever. We seem to have taken a pretty large step backward in terms of understanding gender identity and accepting minoritarian sexuality. Look at the statistics around these lives, from the New York City Anti-Violence Project — they’re staggering. And if that’s what life is like here in Gotham, in the 21st century, what is it like elsewhere, not in a major urban coastal city?

Image

Ms. Clemente’s sketches and costumes for Richard Move.CreditChad Batka for The New York Times

How do these ideas come into the choreography?

Some of the movement is very lush, orblike, sensual. In particular, there’s a very sensual duet for the Catherines, as I call them. They kind of become the androgyne. And it seems like I’ve emerged as the castrato. So that’s a through line, that these personas emerge and merge and reappear and disappear.

In other moments the choreography is spare and gestural. I’ve found myself paring it down, making it simpler and simpler, like varnishing this precious, delicate object. Some of it is informed by the costuming; the costume proposes a limitation to movement, which then becomes liberating.

You mentioned that the costume designs came first in creating the work.

I see the costuming as another figure onstage, integral to what we’re doing. Alba has an almost commedia theatrical sensibility, Pierrot-like. She’s playing with garments that we would most commonly refer to as masculine or feminine, and she’s merging, blurring, accentuating.

You’ve been called a Martha Graham ‘impersonator.’ How do you react to that term?

Oh, I bristle. It’s hideous. Impersonation is primarily associated with parody, and I love when people find humor in the performance and in Martha. But I don’t think what I’m doing is a veneer or a trick or sleight of hand. I feel that I’m inhabited with this spirit, this person, with her ideas, and completely enrapt.

After 20 years of channeling Martha, how do you keep the character alive?

I don’t have to do anything. She keeps presenting herself to me. There’s no business plan for Martha, you know? It has been this evolutionary, organic happening. The longer it goes on, the more momentum it accrues, and the more forceful kind of attraction I possess. I think that keeps it vital.

A version of this article appears in print on , on Page C2 of the New York edition with the headline: Gender Outlaws, Floating Freely Outside Binary Boxes. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe